The elderly Mrs. Nellie Richardson of Springfield, Vermont, sang the following for Helen Harkness Flanders in 1930. (Flanders and George Brown, "Vermont Folk-Songs and Ballads" [Brattleboro, 1932]).

Flanders tells us that Mrs. Richardson recalled the song from "the singing of her mother, Mrs. Martha Richardson, at least seventy-five years ago," in the 1850s, that is, before the Civil War. (The population at that time was under 3,000.) That apparently makes it the oldest known text.

Martha would "dance about the kitchen singing this 'rockaby' [sic] song."

Nellie sang the song "in dialect," presumably as her mother sang it. The spelling "auld" suggests Scots, and "Shtop" suggests either Scots or Anglo-Irish, but "allus" and "terbaccy" do not.

(Maybe one or both of the ladies wasn't very good at dialect.)

                         THE AULD SOLDIER

There was an' auld soldier an' he had a wooden leg,
He had no terbaccy, nor terbaccy could he beg.
There was another soldier, as cunnin' as a fox,
An' he allus had terbaccy in his auld terbaccy box.

Says the first auld soldier, "Won't ye give me a chew?"
Said the second auld soldier, "Shoot me dead if I do.
Shtop ye're drinkin' whiskey. Go te pilin' up yer rocks,
An' ye'll allus have terbaccy in yer auld terbaccy box."


It looks as if the bird with the wooden foot was originally a separate (and presumably later) ditty.

The Richardsons' tune seems like a major (Ionian) variant of "The Red-Haired Boy."